


that's what you do, baby

by shuttermutt



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Artist Zayn, Crossdressing, Exhibitionism, M/M, Underage Sex, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:14:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuttermutt/pseuds/shuttermutt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Huh. Well, if you're ever up for it, you should let me. My name's Zayn, by the way. Zayn Malik."</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"I know," Harry blurts out before he can stop himself. There's his voice, then. And his blush, Christ. Zayn is giving him an odd look, so he says, "I mean, I've seen your art. In the halls. It's really good."</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Zayn perks up at that, smiling. "Well then, I guess it's settled. You'll model for me. Great."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	that's what you do, baby

**Author's Note:**

> This is a HS-au where they don't actually go to school very much and somehow dressing Harry up in panties happened (when does that not happen in my fics though lbr) and then sex? idk, this got away from me in a big way. Not betaed, sorry for any mistakes.

Harry is an average lad. He gets up and goes to school and spends time with his friends and mum and sister. He might be a bit more emotional than other boys his age, but that's just because he's sensitive. His mum's told him so. She says he wears his heart on his sleeve, which is a good thing. Harry tries to be good, as much as he can. He doesn't like getting in trouble, and he quite likes receiving praise, so he does what he's told, keeps his head down. It doesn't stop him from getting noticed, sometimes, though.

"Christ, you're pretty," someone says from behind him. He's at his locker, so he startles a bit, drops his books. "Oh, sorry, lemme help." 

Harry finally turns to see Zayn, from art and drama club behind him, bent down to collect his dropped things. "Um," Harry says smartly.

Zayn looks up at him and grins. There's a cigarette tucked behind his ear that Harry ends up focusing on. Zayn, Harry knows from the fact that Holmes Chapel is a tiny town with a gossip mill so strong it probably powers the local economy, is at the Academy because of lottery. They've never shared a class, but Harry’s seen some of his stuff hung in the arts wing and heard several of his classmates talk about his performances on stage.

"Was that a weird thing to say?" Zayn asks, holding Harry’s books out. "Only, you've been staring at me like I'm crazy."

Harry takes his books, tries to convince himself that blushing is stupid. "No, it's fine? No one's ever said that of me, though." And he really doesn't think Zayn should be throwing out the word _pretty_ like that, with the way he looks. Harry’s never seen someone with eyelashes that long and thick, before, and he knows loads of girls.

Zayn's eyebrows go up, like Harry’s said something unbelievable. "People must not have eyes around here, then." Harry clutches his books to his chest, tries to figure out what to say to that, but Zayn beats him. "Anyways, I usually don't approach random people like this, but like I said, you're really pretty. Has anyone ever drawn you, before?" Harry shakes his head. "Huh. Well, if you're ever up for it, you should let me. My name's Zayn, by the way. Zayn Malik." 

"I know," Harry blurts out before he can stop himself. There's his voice, then. And his blush, Christ. Zayn is giving him an odd look, so he says, "I mean, I've seen your art. In the halls. It's really good." 

Zayn perks up at that, smiling. "Well then, I guess it's settled. You'll model for me. Great." Zayn looks excited and Harry can't seem to make his mouth work long enough to question what's going on, even though he’s never this flustered to talk to people.

And that's how Harry ends up giving Zayn Malik his mobile number and setting up a date to get drawn. What even.

-

Zayn, Harry finds out, lives in a tiny flat on his own, above the bakery that Harry worked at over summer hols. He feels like he should have known that, but he hadn't been back since the term started, so there’s really no way he _could_ have known.

"My family had to stay back in Bradford, since we can't afford to stay out here, but the scholarship I got to the Academy came with some housing money as well," Zayn tells him, when Harry comes over on the Saturday they agreed on. Harry hadn't asked, but he's sure he'd looked curious enough for Zayn to pick up on his unvoiced questions. 

"That sounds lonely," Harry finds himself saying, even though he doesn't mean to. He does that a lot around Zayn, he finds, says things he doesn't mean to, even though they’ve literally only had two conversations at this point. 

Zayn shrugs. "I visit them during holidays and one weekend a month. I keep myself busy with school and work."

"What do you do?" Harry asks, sitting down on the battered couch that's across from the bed. There's a small television on a milk crate and the kitchen is tiny, but clean. 

Zayn brings him out a cup of tea, sits on the coffee table in front of the sofa. "Freelance work, mostly." He nods to the tiny desk by the bed that's stacked high with sketchbooks, canvases and other art supplies Harry wouldn't even begin to know how to use. 

"That’s cool," he says, trying to sound as genuinely impressed as he is. He's never met someone as put together as Zayn seems to be. "You’re quite independent."

Zayn nods, takes a sip of his tea. "I also do the occasional portrait or commission for the folks around here. Higher disposable income, so they'll pay a lot for something a bit different." 

Harry feels his cheeks heat up at that; Zayn doesn't sound like he's commenting about Harry specifically, but it's hard not to feel that way when he's sitting in Zayn’s tiny flat, wearing brand new clothing his parents gave him the money to buy for. "I worked in the bakery downstairs last summer," he says, feeling childish just for bring it up. Like he has to prove something.

Zayn grins, not letting it get awkward at all. "Really? They make great sticky buns. That’s cool. I can barely cook at all. S'why I live off these things, really," Zayn says, patting the pack of cigarettes in the coffee table beside him. "D’you mind if I smoke while I draw? It helps me concentrate." 

Harry doesn't like the smell, but it's Zayn’s flat, so he won't tell him no. "It’s fine." 

“Great. Let's get started then, shall we?" Zayn grins again, sets his mug down and gets up. 

"What should I do?" Harry asks, standing up a well, feeling quite out of place. 

Zayn looks back at him, but Harry knows he's looking at him differently, now. Like he's looking at what could be instead of what's actually there. "If it won't make you uncomfortable, could you maybe get down to your pants and sit on the bed?" Zayn is digging a cigarette out of his battered pack as he asks, so he doesn't see Harry biting his lip, thankfully. 

Harry doesn’t have a problem with nudity, not at all, but it's still a bit forward to strip down this soon after meeting a person and coming to their house, isn't it? But, well, if Zayn is the one asking, it shouldn't be such a big deal, he guesses.

"Yeah, okay," he says softly, already going for the hem of his shirt. 

Zayn walks to his desk, cigarette lit and hanging from the corner if his mouth. There's an easel set up beside the desk that Zayn moves to in front of the bed while Harry strips down to his pants. There's a palette with dried paint on Zayn’s desk but he doesn't pick it up. Instead, he grabs what Harry thinks might be a charcoal pencil, if he’s remembering the scant art classes he’s had to take over the years.

"Where should I sit?"

Zayn gets a large sketch pad set up, then turns to Harry, hands on his hips. "Just cross-legged in the middle," he says finally. 

Harry climbs onto the bed, trying not to think about what he usually does when he's crawling into someone else's bed. He may not be the most experienced boy in his year, but he’s seen his fair share of bedrooms. This is definitely the most unique activity he’s done in one, though. He sits right in the middle as asked, legs crossed and arms hanging at his side, uncertain of what to do with them.

Frowning, Zayn moves from behind the easel and comes towards the bed. "No, that's not right at all," he mumbles to himself. He tucks his charcoal pencil behind his ear and grabs Harry’s right leg, pulling it out so that his foot is dangling over the edge. He moves Harry’s left leg up so his knee's by his chin. Zayn's fingers leave little black smudges in their wake. "And tilt your head to the side, okay?" Harry turns his head to the side, so he's looking at the sofa. Zayn touches his neck, smudges his fingers there and Harry realizes the charcoal was probably on purpose. 

Harry’s hands are still at his side, so he lets them tangle in the sheets so he doesn't fidget. The sofa is rather boring and he can hear Zayn drawing, but he can't really see—his knee is blocking his view from this angle—so after a while, he turns to watch. 

Zayn is frowning at the paper, cigarette almost down to the filter. He's put on glasses that Harry didn't even know he had, but they look quite good on him. His eyes flick up over the pad and he says, sharply, "don't move." 

Harry turns back quickly, biting his lip until it hurts. He knows he's flushed, just hopes it hasn't gone all down his chest like usual.

After a while, Zayn moves him so that he's leaning against the wall the bed is pressed against, legs straight in front and head tilted up so his throat is bared. Zayn leaves a collar of black fingerprints around his neck and over one thigh. Harry spends his time between poses just breathing in the smell of cigarette smoke and thinking to himself, trying to sit as still as possible. 

Trying that hard mostly makes him tired and his thoughts go soft, and he doesn't realize he's fallen asleep until Zayn is shaking his shoulder, saying, "Hey, c'mon, wake up. It's late." 

Harry blinks his eyes open, looks up at Zayn, and for a horrifying moment, leans up as if to kiss him on instinct. He stops himself just in time, though, falls back against the bed. "Sorry," he says, voice scratchy. He wonders how long he's been asleep. The light coming in through the tiny window above the sink is orange.

Zayn is staring down at him pretty intensely. "It’s okay," he says lowly.

"Did you get everything you needed?" 

"Mostly, yeah." 

"Can I see?" 

Zayn is still looking at him in that concentrated way. It makes Harry’s throat go dry. "Yeah, sure," Zayn tells him, climbing off the bed. 

Harry sits up, slides off the bed and goes for his trousers, gets them up over his hips but doesn't bother to zip or button them up. Zayn spreads the torn out pages on the floor and Harry gets a good look at them. "Oh," he says softly. "Wow." 

Zayn smiles, lights a cigarette Harry didn't even notice him get. "You like?" 

It's amazing, because Harry knows he’s the person in all these pictures, but...they look better. Sensual. The smudges around his hips and chest and arms and neck look like bruises from rough sex. They're weirdly arousing, even though it's _Harry_ in them. 

The last one is of him facing away from the viewer, sheets slung low on his hips. There's a line of bruises along his hip and up the curve of his side. They go down past the sheets as well. Harry looks down at himself, surprised he didn't notice the black smudges when he woke up.

"Yeah," Harry says. He licks his bottom lip. "They’re great."

"Had a good muse, then, didn't I?" Zayn laughs, stubs out his cigarette. "So that was really just figure study. If you want to come back so I can actually paint you, I wouldn't say no." Zayn flops down on his sofa, picks up Harry’s cold mug of tea and drinks from it. He makes a face at it and Harry lets out a bark of laughter, covers his mouth when Zayn looks at him with raised brows. "You doing alright over there?" 

Harry smiles behind his hands. "M'fine." He gets his shirt from by the sofa and pulls it on, floundering when his hair gets caught in his top button. 

"Hey, you're okay," Zayn says from right beside him suddenly. He untangles Harry’s curls from his shirt, pulls it down and straightens it over his stomach. The gesture makes Harry's breath come short.

“Um. If you’d like, I could come back?” Harry fidgets with his zip, then with the buttons on his shirt, trying not to actually look up at Zayn. He has no clue why he feels so flustered around him. He doesn’t _get_ flustered around people. Even especially attractive people.

“I just said that, didn’t I?” Zayn asks. He’s still got his hands on Harry's shoulders and he’s sort of smoothing down the fabric again and again, like he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. “You should come back here with me next Friday. We’ve got that half-day.”

Harry nods. “Yeah, sure. That’d be great.” 

“Cool.” Zayn finally pulls away from him and Harry can feel like he can breathe again. “I’ll see you at school, then.

-

Harry spends the next few days at school in a sort of haze. He sees Zayn in the halls and smiles at him, but they don’t talk. Zayn’s crowd really isn’t Harry's—the art kids and drama kids; the ones who wear their ties loose around their necks and rainbow belts around their trousers.

The days leading up to Friday pass by in a blur, and honestly, Harry couldn’t tell you anything he’s learned, or anything he’s really done in any of his classes since Monday. He’s just really focused on what happened and how he felt about it, and what it means that he’s feeling it about Zayn.

This isn’t a gay crisis or anything. Harry has kissed enough boys at enough parties to know that he likes guys and girls. He’s just never gotten so flustered around someone, before. Harry's usually put together and can talk to anyone, but Zayn makes him lose his words. He feels _shy_ around him, for Christ’s sake. Harry isn’t _shy_.

Friday rolls around before Harry is really fully prepared for it.

Zayn finds him at his locker and grins, bag already slung over his shoulder. “Ready?” he asks.

“Yeah, I think so.” Harry adjusts the strap on his bag, even though it’s perfectly fine. He just can’t stop himself from fidgeting. 

“Cool.” Zayn hooks his arm around Harry's shoulders, steers him towards the front entrance. 

Zayn asks him about his classes for the day and Harry's pretty sure he answers him in a normal way, because Zayn doesn’t give him any weird looks. They get to the bakery sooner than Harry expected and then they’re back in Zayn’s flat and Harry feels out of place again.

“You want me to get my kit off again?” he asks, dropping his bag on the floor by the sofa. 

“Yeah, sure.” Zayn’s already in the kitchen, banging the kettle against the sink as he fills it up. “Got a new chair, so we’ll use that.” He points the kettle at the ugly, overstuffed chair Harry hadn’t noticed that’s by the desk. It’s got a horrible floral print that reminds Harry of his gran’s house. “So just settle down on that, alright?” 

Harry nods, gets his clothing off and onto the sofa while Zayn makes them tea. He’s got on briefs, today, hadn’t even thought about it when he’d put on his outfit for the day (or maybe he had, Harry just doesn’t even know anymore). They’re black and quite good on his bum and when he turns around, he notices Zayn looking at them. “These okay?” he asks, feeling quite breathless.

“Sure,” Zayn says again. He brings out their mugs of tea, hands one over to Harry when Harry's finally sat down on the chair. It’s scratchy and sort of awful, but it’s worth the way Zayn’s eyes rake over him.

They sit in silence for a bit while they drink their tea, then Zayn sits up from the couch abruptly. “Can I put some eyeliner and stuff on you? It’ll really bring out the colour of your eyes in anything I paint.”

Harry thinks about it for a bit. He’s seen loads of other boys with eyeliner on, before, plus no one else is actually about. Zayn wouldn’t make fun of him for wearing it, certainly, not if he owns it.

“Sure, okay,” he says, putting his mug on the coffee table. “Don’t know how to put it on, though.”

“Good thing I do, then,” Zayn says, grinning. He puts his tea down as well, jumps up and goes to rummage through a desk drawer. “Brought some home after practice once, on accident, and never got around to bringing it back. Lucky I didn’t, eh?” he asks, coming back up and brandishing an eyeliner stick and a tube of peach lip gloss.

“Where’d you get that, then?” Harry asks, nodding at the tube.

Zayn laughs, wiggles his eyebrows up and down. “Girl forgot it here and I never got her number to be able to return it.” He comes back over to Harry and moves him so that his legs are hanging off one arm of the chair, elbow on the other used to prop Harry's chin up. “Okay, this is going to be odd, but bear with me.”

Getting eyeliner put on is a strange experience, for Harry. Maybe Zayn is used to it because of his time on the stage, but Harry definitely finds it odd. Zayn pulls on his lower eyelids to line the bottom of his eyes, instructs him to look up while he does it, then tells him to close his eyes altogether so he can line the top lids. The pencil is sort of scratchy, like it hasn’t been properly sharpened and it’s weird to feel it dragging so close to a place that makes Harry want to flail out and protect instinctively, but he controls himself. Zayn ends up rubbing his thumb beneath Harry's eye, to the corner of the lid a few times until he’s satisfied with how it looks.

The lip gloss is easier, if even stranger once applied. Zayn uncaps the tube, squeezes the bottom so some of the gloss pools out at the tip. It smells like vanilla and sugar and makes Harry's mouth water.

This time, Zayn says, “open your mouth a bit, but keep it soft,” like Harry is supposed to know what that means. He opens his mouth anyways, lets Zayn put the thick, smelly gloss on his lips, drag the tube around to make the coat even. Harry smacks his lips together when Zayn is finished, like he’s seen in movies, and is sorely tempted to lick at the gloss, even though he knows there’s no way it could taste near as good as it smells.

Zayn pulls back, sits on his haunches and surveys Harry. His eyes are soft as he looks at Harry, but Harry keeps getting distracted by how sticky his mouth is, now. He keeps wanting to rub his hand across his lips, but he knows that would smear what Zayn’s done.

The easel is set up again, with a canvas, this time, and Zayn drags it away from his desk and in front of the chair. He uses a pencil, which makes a sort of sense, to Harry—it would be daft to just start with paint on something like a canvas, wouldn’t it?—but Harry soon gets bored of watching just the hunch of Zayn’s shoulders over the canvas and lets his mind wander.

He comes back when Zayn quickly repositions him so that his legs are completely over the arm of the chair, toes just dragging along the carpet, head pillowed on the other one. He’s got one arm along the length of his torso, tips of his fingers against his thigh while the other one is hanging down off the chair, fingers tracing over the carpet. 

Harry ends up spreading his fingers, tracing patterns over the carpet as Zayn erases and fixes what he has on the canvas. It’s soft, like it’s been walked on a lot. Harry thinks about whether or not Zayn paces up here when he’s trying to be creative, if maybe he has loads of people up to be drawn or to have parties or to have sex—because that’s what Zayn was implying about the lip gloss, Harry isn’t oblivious.

His mind ends up wandering to the thought of Zayn and some random girl--or even _boy_ , there are rumors about what Zayn gets up to when he goes out to the next city over with his mates. Harry quickly makes himself stop thinking about Zayn pressing someone against a wall, smoothing his hand down the lines of their body because it's turning him on and he's in nothing but tight briefs, Zayn will _see_.

"I think I have everything I can get today," Zayn says. He looks a bit frustrated when he steps away from his canvas, like things aren't going quite how he wants them to.

"Everything okay?" Harry asks, sitting up and reaching for his pile of clothes. He puts them on slowly, watching Zayn all the while.

Zayn shrugs, seems to have to make himself look away from his canvas to watch Harry dress. "It's not looking the way I want."

"Maybe I'm not the right sort of model for what you want to draw?"

"Nah," Zayn says, finally grinning. "You're good. Just not in the right mind frame, I guess. Think you can come back tomorrow?"

Harry has a report he needs to write for Monday, but that's not going to stop him. "Yeah, of course. One okay?"

"Sure." Zayn moves over to his bed, flops down and puts his hands over his face. He looks annoyed and Harry wants to say something, try to cheer him up, tell him it'll be okay.

Instead, he finishes dressing and leaves.

-

When Harry comes to the bakery early, he ends up chatting with the owner for a while. She's glad to see him, chastises him for not coming around more often to talk, asks if he thinks he'll want to come back over Winter holidays to work a bit. Harry isn't sure, but he's always glad to have extra pocket money, and he did genuinely enjoy his time here, so he tells her maybe, probably, he'll just have to talk to his mum first. She sends him away with a smile and a bag full of goodies to share with "that sweet, quiet artist lodger of mine, don't think he's had a proper meal since he came out here, all skin and bones, that one, not like you, you've got a good bit of weight to you, good chap, go on up, then."

Harry goes up the stairs to Zayn's flat, cheeks flushed and a prodding at his stomach. Sure, he has baby fat, still, but he's young. His mum keeps telling him he'll hit a growth spurt and all that softness will stretch out to leanness soon enough. He just has to be patient.

Zayn opens the door, laughs when sees Harry lifting up his shirt to stare at his little bit of pudge. "Starting early, then?" he asks, reaching out to grab the bag of pastries from downstairs. 

"What? Oh, no, I was just trying to see if I was fat. Mary said you needed feeding up while I had a 'good bit of weight'." Harry's pouting, he knows, but he's _sensitive_. He's not fat, he's just not as lean as Zayn is.

"She's an odd bird," Zayn says, digging through the wax bag and bringing out a sticky bun. He stuffs half of it into his mouth, chews messily as he says, "She's always trying to feed me. I'm surprised I haven't gained like six stone since I moved in." He eyes Harry, holds out the bag. "You're not fat. You're just what I want. To draw." There's a pause in what he says that makes Harry flush, feel that initial stirring of arousal in his gut. Maybe it wasn't just a slip in his hearing. Maybe Zayn—

No. Harry stops himself. If he lets himself think about it, he'll get weird. Weirder. And he likes spending this time with Zayn. So he cuts that thought off right at the knees and reaches into the bag for a croissant. It's buttery and light and golden and melts on his tongue in a way that makes Harry groan. He’s forgotten just how good everything is downstairs, how he actually _did_ gain a stone working there before he went back to school and lost most of it again.

“Would you be comfortable posing nude?” Zayn asks after clearing his throat. He’s walking away from Harry, towards the kitchen for their usual cup of tea before starting and he doesn’t see Harry swallow nervously.

“Um. No, that’s okay, but uh.” He looks down at his trousers, knows he’s a bit hard just from thinking of Zayn and the fact that he’s a teenager and perpetually just a bit horny.

Zayn laughs like he knows exactly what Harry is trying to say even though he’s not there to look at him, but he’s not unkindly about it. “It’s okay, it happens all the time when you do figure study with men. I can work around it.”

Harry flushes and the embarrassment, the thought of Zayn having to _work_ around him having a semi, is enough to calm him down. He gets his clothing off while Zayn is puttering around making the tea, folds them neatly onto the coffee table even though usually he just lets them drop onto the floor. He’s nervous, being completely naked in front of Zayn, who’s obviously drawn loads of naked people before. What if he sees Harry and is disappointed or disgusted or loses his desire to draw him? Harry ends up standing in the middle of the living area since he has no clue where Zayn wants him, hands covering himself as he tries not to fidget.

“It’s okay,” Zayn says, coming back into the living room with two mugs. “You don’t have to feel obligated. You can put your pants back on if you want.”

The offer makes Harry pause for a moment, but he ends up shaking his head, taking his hands from in front and letting them hang at his side. He knows he’s blushing but he tries not to think about it.

Zayn hands him his mug, eyes sweeping over him like a caress. “You really are gorgeous,” he says, finally. “I still can’t believe no one has ever asked to draw you, before.”

“Nope.” Harry takes a sip of his tea, but it doesn’t set well in his stomach, so he sets the mug down on the table. "How do you want me?" he asks, fingers tapping uselessly against his thighs, unsure what to do with them yet.

"Uh," Zayn says. He licks his lips, sets his own mug down and moves closer to Harry. "Sort of, like, sit with your legs under you, soles of your feet pressed against the back."

Harry climbs awkwardly onto the scratchy floral armchair, sits back on his heels so that his knees are poking out over the edge of the armchair, feet pressed against the back on either side of his bum. Zayn moves in as soon as he's in position, spreads his knees a bit more and puts his hands down so that his fingers are splayed out over his thighs. The position makes him feel open and vulnerable and although his cock is soft, it's just _there_ , so close to Zayn's hand that Harry can feel the warmth of him.

"Lean back so your shoulders are touching the cloth, and tilt your head back as well." Zayn follows his words with his hands, moving Harry back so his shoulders and head are against the armchair. He stands in front of Harry, looking down the line of his body, fingers twitching like he wants to touch but he draws away instead, grabs a pack of cigarettes from below the coffee table and lights one quickly. "Just stay like that," Zayn says, moving away from Harry's line of sight to grab his easel and bring it back in front of the armchair.

Even though it's not hot in the flat, Harry _feels_ hot. He can feel sweat beading on his forehead and under his fingers where they're pressed to his thighs. He wonders if Zayn can tell, if he'll add that in his picture. Harry also wonders what Zayn is going to do with this. If he's going to put his pictures in the arts hallway for the rest of the student body to observe. He would guess the nude one wouldn't be allowed, but wouldn't people _recognise_ him like this? Wouldn't they be able to look at the line of his neck or the spread of his fingers and know it's _him_?

The thought makes him shiver, even though he still feels overheated. He doesn't want anyone else at school to see him like this. He wants Zayn to keep it private, to himself. Wants him to keep these pictures of Harry, vulnerable and exposed, to himself. He doesn't want Zayn to share this with anyone else.

"What will you do with these pictures?" Harry asks, voice hoarse. "Will you show them somewhere?" He opens his eyes—didn't even realise they'd closed—and looks at Zayn from the angle his head is tilted back as best he can.

Zayn is smoking, still, pencil in the other hand, but he's paused, looking over the canvas at Harry. "No," he says. "I might use them to develop an abstract for a show I have at the end of summer, but these are for my own study." Zayn presses the side of his pencil to his leg, licks his bottom lip. "Do you want me to show them?"

"Not really." Harry lets his fingers curl on his thighs, but flattens them out quickly. "They're yours."

"Yeah," Zayn says softly. He watches Harry for a long moment, then goes back to the canvas.

After they're done, and Harry is pulling on his clothing, Harry wants to ask if he can see how it ended up, but he feels oddly shy over it. He's not sure if he can look at how Zayn sees him when he's drawing him. So he just gulps his cold tea down and nods when Zayn asks him over for the next weekend to probably wrap things up.

-

Harry spends the next week alternately feeling anxious, excited and disappointed. He doesn’t want it to be the last time he sits with Zayn, but he doesn’t think that Zayn would want to hang out with him outside of their sessions. Every time Harry spots him in school, Zayn always seems so busy with his friends and his activities with his clubs. Sometimes he’ll look up during lunch and spot Zayn looking at him sort of intensely, but Zayn never makes a move to talk to him.

It’s just that, even though they don’t talk much during, Harry really likes Zayn. He’s obviously talented and passionate about his art, he smokes far too much and drinks a lot of tea and always seems busy. But he’s funny, too, when he cracks jokes around his cigarettes, and he’s so bloody gorgeous it makes Harry’s eyes cross sometimes. He doesn’t want to lose whatever it is they have with one another.

So when he gets to Zayn’s that Saturday, he’s tired and grumpy from not sleeping because he’s been thinking about the whole situation too much. Zayn answers the door with a grin and immediately reaches out to pull Harry in. Harry stumbles after him, laughing before he can stop himself. He’s never seen Zayn so eager before.

“What’s going on?” Harry asks, feeling ridiculously breathless when Zayn stops short and he bumps into his back. 

Zayn turns around and just _stares_ at him for a long time. Long enough that Harry starts to fidget in place, impatient to know. “Since this is our last session, I thought we could do something different? You don’t have to if you don’t want, I’d completely understand. It might be weird.”

“Tell me?”

“It’s…here.” Zayn lets go of Harry’s hand and goes over to his desk, picking up a black bag Harry hadn’t noticed before. His curiosity peaks even more. He holds the bag out, like he’s afraid to walk over and hand it to Harry.

“I’m sure whatever it is, it’s not too…weird…” Harry trails off when he actually gets to Zayn’s side and takes the bag, looking inside. There’s a pair of pink, cotton knickers settled in a pile of tissue paper. “Um.”

Zayn looks red around the ears when Harry glances up at him. “You don’t have to,” he says again. “Sorry, this was a weird idea. I shouldn’t have suggested it. We can just do it like before. I’ll take those—”

“No, I want to,” Harry blurts out, pressing the bag to his chest and away from Zayn’s reaching hand. “Can I use the loo?” 

“’Course.”

Harry makes his way quickly to the bathroom, not letting himself linger over the way Zayn is looking at him. When he looks at the mirror he sees that his cheeks are pink but that’s probably pretty normal when someone asks you to put on girls’ underwear. What’s not normal is how he’s already half-hard in his trousers, just from the thought of putting the pink clothing on.

“Do they fit?” Zayn calls through the door.

“Gimme a sec!” Harry curses, fumbles the bag open to actually get them out. There’s no reason he needs to be spending so much time thinking about this. It’s absolutely fine. Loads of guys have put on girls’ clothing and stuff for ads and modelling. Not that Harry thinks he’s a model or anything. But it’s totally not abnormal. Right.

He strips down, leaving his clothes in a pile next to the toilet. Zayn has a few clothes here and there, like he doesn’t bother with a hamper before he takes a shower. Harry’s mum would have a fit if he left his bathroom in that sort of state. He really has to stop thinking about Zayn having a shower, totally naked, though, because that’s definitely not helping his situation.

The knickers are light pink, and when Harry slides them up his legs, barely fit. He has to put his dick to the side and his balls are barely covered, and he knows for a fact his bum isn’t. He can feel the air back there. Fuck, how do girls wear these? His leg hair is really fair and sparse so it doesn’t look _weird_ , him wearing these. Harry turns around to look at himself in the mirror.

Definitely not weird. He tilts his head to the side. They’re definitely too small for him, but maybe that’s on purpose? The pink looks good against his pale skin, anyways. So there’s that.

“You okay?” Zayn asks, voice closer, like he’s right on the other side of the door.

Harry jumps, startled. He sort of forgot Zayn was even there. “Yeah, it’s fine.” He sounds a little breathless so he clears his throat. “Okay, I’m coming out now.”

Zayn really is right outside the bathroom when Harry opens the door. He’s looking at Harry’s face, but his gaze immediately drops and he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Looks good,” he says, sounding a little breathless himself.

“Thanks.”

They stand there for a few long moments until Zayn shakes his head and turns around, trotting out to the living room. “We’ll use the bed, again. I have enough stuff of you on the armchair, but not much on the bed. That okay?”

Harry nods, going over to the bed and sitting on the edge. “Any way I should sit?” he asks, letting his fingers spread through the folds in the top sheet.

“However you want.” Zayn drags his computer chair over to the bed, sketchpad in his hands. He hasn’t used that since the first day. There’s a pencil in his hand and a cigarette already at the corner of his mouth that he lights before settling into the chair.

“’Kay.” Harry stretches back, arms braced against the bed and feet still pressed to the floor. It puts the lines of his body on display and he still feels a little worried about what he looks like, but Zayn doesn’t say anything. Just stares at him for a long, silent minute, eyes raking over Harry’s body. Harry tries not to think about getting hard in front of Zayn.

It’s different, doing this while he’s wearing knickers. Before, he was in his own boxers, but now he feels...different. He can’t come up with any other word for it. The knickers feel the same as his boxers, but he knows it’s not the same. Not from the way Zayn’s hand is moving over the sketchpad, eyes moving from Harry to the pad and back again with a speed Harry didn’t know was possible. His cigarette is dangling from his mouth like he doesn’t even remember it’s there.

Harry thinks about what Zayn will do with these pictures. If he’s ever asked another boy to wear knickers to be drawn in. If maybe he’ll think about the fact that Harry was on his bed like this. If that’ll keep him up the way it keeps Harry up. 

His arms get tired quickly and he flops down, letting out a startled noise when his back hits the bed. “Sorry,” he says, spreading his arms out across the bed until the fingers of his left hand touch Zayn’s pillow. “Arms got sore.”

“S’okay.” Zayn sounds rushed and distracted.

Harry stares up at Zayn’s ceiling until he gets tired of looking at it. He shuts his eyes, the sound of a pencil scratching against paper lulling him into thoughts he really shouldn’t have when he’s lying like this. He thinks about Zayn setting his sketchpad aside and crawling onto the bed, hovering over him and looking down at him with those big, pretty eyes. He imagines Zayn tracing patterns over his skin, fingers calloused from the brushes he uses. He wonders if he could persuade Zayn to fuck him, right here, with these stupidly tight knickers on.

He realises he’s hard when Zayn clears his throat. “Uh,” he says, moving his hands over his face and trying not to groan out loud. “Sorry.”

“It’s really okay,” Zayn says. Harry sits up a bit when he hears him shift. Zayn is staring at him with dark, half-lidded eyes. “You can take care of it if you need to. I don’t care.”

“Um,” Harry says again, sounding stupid even to his own ears. “That’s not weird?”

Zayn grins. His cigarette is gone. “I’ve done weirder.”

“If you say so.” Harry really does want to get off, but no matter what Zayn says, it _is_ weird to just...get himself off in front of Zayn. But he’s really hard and he’s probably staining the front of the knickers anyways, because he knows he’s leaking. He always gets really wet when he’s turned on, and this whole situation is turning him on. Zayn and the knickers and mostly Zayn. So Harry shrugs and slumps back down against the bed, squeezing his eyes shut.

His hands seem tentative, at first, but he tells his brain to shut and stop worrying and to just get to work. Harry moves one hand down his chest, not bothering to stop and play with his nipples or belly, even though that’s something he usually likes to do before he really goes at it. He’s already hard enough, he doesn’t need to tease himself.

The front of the knickers are wet and cold against his hand when he slides it in to grasp his cock. His skin is hot, though, and he’s leaking enough that he doesn’t need lube for the slide of his hand to be easy. Harry tries not to think about the fact that Zayn is sitting right in front of him, watching him, but he can’t help it. He wonders if Zayn can smell him, smell how turned on he is, just from this. He lets out a little hitched breath when he finally pulls himself from the knickers, hand really starting to move up and down faster. His thighs are already shaking, stomach quivering like he’s about to come _right now_ , even though he’s just started. 

“Oh,” he says softly, toes curling into the carpet when he twists on the upstroke, pleasure sparking through his entire body. He loves getting off, loves fucking and messing about. He loves feeling good, and getting off definitely feels good. Harry knows he’s close to coming, can feel his impending orgasm curling in his stomach, ready to spring.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Zayn spits out, startling Harry into letting go of his cock, eyes flying open and sitting up a bit. He really had forgotten Zayn was there, watching him. Zayn’s eyes are wide, now, shot black like he’s turned on. He’s not scribbling on his pad, hand clenched tight around the pencil. There’s a light flush on his cheeks and when Harry looks down, his trousers are definitely tighter than they were, before. “You really are gorgeous,” Zayn says, bringing Harry’s attention back to his face. He looks like he wants.

Harry wants, too.

“You should come up here,” he says, voice low and wrecked like it gets when he’s beyond turned on. Zayn hesitates for half a second before throwing his pad to the side, standing up and starting to undress himself. He doesn’t ask if Harry is sure, which Harry appreciates. Just strips down and Harry finally gets a good look at _him_. “Oh my god,” he says, sitting up fully again, completely distracted from his own cock.

“What?” Zayn asks, looking down at himself. He sounds like he might be self-conscious but Harry has no clue why he ever would be. He’s _well_ fit.

“Look at you! I can’t believe you keep calling me gorgeous when you’re pretty much the most attractive person I have ever laid eyes on,” Harry says. Zayn’s cock is hard, pressed against his stomach and wet at the tip and Harry wants to get his mouth around him, wants to taste him, can’t stop looking. 

Zayn laughs, gets a hand around his dick and stokes himself once before moving to the bed and standing between Harry’s legs. “You wanna get back to what you were doing?” He’s still jerking himself off, slow, looking at Harry’s cock, now, instead of his face.

“Fuck,” Harry groans, putting his hand back on his dick and tugging hard and fast, too turned on for words. Fuck, he’s got Zayn between his legs, watching him get off. What more could he want. 

“God, you’ve got no finesse.” Zayn knocks his hand away, wraps his own fist around Harry’s cock and Harry sees _white_. His grip is tight and slightly calloused in a way Harry’s isn’t and it just feels so fucking _good_ , God, he can’t even control the way his hips are fucking up into Zayn’s touch, desperate for more. “Look at you,” he whispers. His thighs are touching Harry’s, spread out obscenely over the bed. The points of contact between them send jolts up Harry’s spine.

“Shut up,” he mumbles, grasping fistfuls of the sheets and holding on, trying to keep from coming.

“I want to fuck the words right out of you,” Zayn says, rubbing his thumb across Harry’s slit. 

It’s enough, more than enough. The thought of Zayn fucking him, coming inside him, maybe, is enough to push Harry into orgasm, thighs clenching up, spilling all over Zayn’s fist and his own stomach and thighs, getting the knickers even more wet.

“Oh, Christ.” Zayn lets Harry’s cock go, grabs his own dick and jerks himself hard, using Harry’s come to slide the way. The image has Harry’s dick twitching in interest, but it’s far too soon. “You’d look so fucking pretty on my cock, God.”

“Wanna feel you in me,” Harry mumbles, words slurred from how exhausted he is.

Swearing, Zayn comes, aiming his dick away from himself and towards Harry. He gets his come all over Harry’s thighs, as if there wasn’t already a mess there. “Shit, stay right there,” he says, wiping his hand on the sheets next to Harry’s hand and rushing over to get his thrown sketchpad. His pencil is on the floor as well, under a sock and he curses as he grabs it and moves back to the computer chair.

“Is that your definition of afterglow?” Harry asks, laughing and trying not to squirm too much. His thighs are sticky and cooling, now, and he feels disgusting. He really wants a shower. Plus, the elastic of the knickers is cutting into his thighs and he wants to take them off.

Zayn grins, looks up at him, pencil poised over the pad. “Let me finish this, and we can go for round two. Then you’ll get your afterglow.”

Harry swallows, licks his lip. The look on Zayn’s face makes his dick twitch again. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do that.”

“Good.” Zayn goes back to his drawing and Harry sits on the bed as patiently as he possibly can be with the thought of being able to do this again running through his head.


End file.
